The biggest surprise at the Closing Night for the Sarasota Film Festival came when Elisabeth Moss, lead actress for the Closing Night film The One I Love, showed up unannounced to present director Charlie McDowell with a Breakthrough Award and to participate in an audience Q&A. Later that evening, she granted an exclusive interview with SRQ Media Group about why she decided to take the role in the film, with some discussion edited so not to give too much of the film away.

The Sarasota Film Festival announced all the winners for jury and audience awards at this year’s event. Ida won the Narrative Feature Competition, Happy Valley won the Documentary Feature Competition and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely earned the Independent Visions Prize.

Tonight is the world premiere of the new film Road to Paloma at the Sarasota Film Festival and star Jason Momoa is in town. The movie marks Momoa’s directorial debut (apart from a well-received short in 2010 – Brown Bag Blues: Ridin’ the Blinds in B Minor) as well as the arrival of his first feature-length screenplay, which he wrote with filmmaker friends Robert Homer Mollohan and Jonathan Hirschbein. It’s a big night, no doubt, but Momoa isn’t nervous at all. He has the confidence of a creator who knows that he did what he set out to do.